Cult Classics: Yves St. Laurent – Touche Éclat

Beauty products come and go with the seasons, by the dozen, but a rare few have managed to survive the chopping block year after year and through the decades have become favorites among cosmetics users across the board: cult classics. In this series, I’ll review these raved about products to see if they really live up to the hype.

Yves St. Laurent, a high-end French cosmetics company, among many things, has created some great products over the years, but one in particular, Touche Éclat, or Radiant Touch, has truly become a cult classic. It is raved about by cosmetics lovers young and old for its unmatched ability to banish under eye darkness, circles, and shadows, and is a must-have for makeup artists around the world.

The Product

Yves St. Laurent describes Touche Éclat as “the beauty secret of the world’s top makeup artists and models; the original must-have for a radiant, flawless face.” YSL claims you can “capture 8 hours of sleep with the click of a pen.” This corrector allows the user to practically erase dark circles, fine lines, and signs of fatigue. Touche Éclat is “powered by the radiance-boosting Luminocaptide Complex” so skin is instantly illuminated leaving the user looking rested and refreshed. The highlighting pen is designed to be sleek and sophisticated, discretely slipping into makeup bags for quick touch-ups anytime – the one beauty essential no woman should ever be without.

The external packaging is a gold-colored, reflective, sleek, simple box, pictured below. The packaging of the pen itself is similarly gold-colored and reflective. While the pen looks very sleek, simple, and classy, the material is extremely prone to scratching; I would prefer if the pens were housed in metal as opposed to plastic, but even being plastic, the pen feels very sturdy. The cap closes very firmly and securely and I have never had a problem with it opening whilst in my makeup bag creating a mess like some other products have.

As far as the product itself, it lives up to a lot of the claims made and deserves much of the praise and adoration it receives throughout the beauty community, though not all. I have two shades: 1, Luminous Raidance, the original bisque-hued brightener and 2, Luminous Ivory, the neutral, fair shade that most closely matches my skin tone, both pictured below. First, I started using shade 1, but soon found that it’s just a little too pink-toned for my skin unless I have severe dark circles. After trying to make it work for everyday use and not being terribly successful, I tried shade 2, which is absolutely amazing! It is perfect for everyday use, it conceals moderate dark circles, doesn’t settle or collect in fine lines, doesn’t feel heavy or look cakey, and provides a perfect highlight in other places as well: along the bridge of my nose, the top of my cheekbones, just below or above my brow bone and along my cupid’s bow. It’s also great for correcting marionette lines between the nose and outer corners of the mouth.

Unfortunately, my review for Touche Éclat is not all rave. YSL is not a cruelty free brand. I do not purchase cruelty-free to the absolute exclusion of everything else, but the vast majority of my purchases are cruelty-free. I always prefer brands that don’t use animal testing: it’s cruel and unnecessary. There are far better testing methods available, which do not involve torturing and killing bunnies (and other creatures).

My other qualm with Touche Éclat is YSL’s use of mineral oil. Mineral oil is derived from petroleum; it’s a biproduct of the refining process used to make gasoline, that stuff you put in your car. It can suffocate the skin, lead to break outs and clogged pores and has serious links to cancer. Mineral oil is effective in moisturizing skin, not because it adds any moisture to skin, but because it is slow to be absorbed and fills in all the little gaps in skin (read: pores), which simply helps skin to retain the moisture it already has; however, eventually mineral oil and other petroleum products are absorbed into the skin and into the bloodstream where they end up doing all kinds of damage, particularly to the liver where the clogging effect can be most dangerous since the liver’s job is to clean other toxins from your body (like all that tequila after a night out). It’s not good stuff and I don’t want it in my body. It’s also a really cheap product, usually used by drugstore companies. There are many far better alternatives like jojoba oil. Touche Éclat also contains other icky stuff like sulfates and parabens.

The Skinny

Touche Éclat does what it says it will do. It’s a great correcting highlighter product, definitely earning it’s spot among the cult classic elite. However, the use of mineral oil is disappointing especially at $40 for only 2.5 ml of product.

An amazing alternative is the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circle Treatment concealer. It works just as well as if not better than Touche Éclat, costs only $6-8, depending on where you shop, contains 6 ml of product and doesn’t contain any sulfates, parabens, or mineral oil. The only downside is that some people have reported problems with the applicator; however, I have never had any problem with it.

So, what do you think of Touche Eclat? Will you try it? Will you try the Maybelline alternative? Let me know in the comments below!

Because I’m so fair, I usually have trouble finding powders in the drugstore that are light enough for me. Next time I’m shopping I’ll check out the powder you recommended. Hopefully there will be a shade for me! Thanks :)